In order to engage in trading activity with a trading exchange, such as a stock exchange for example, traders have traditionally used brokers to assist them with transactions in the trading exchange. A broker has access to the trading exchange and acts as a middleman between a trader and the trading exchange, thus interacting with the trading exchange on behalf of the trader, such as to place, modify, monitor, or cancel various trading orders for various tradable instruments. Thus, the trader does not need direct access to the trading exchange and does not need to spend their time monitoring the trading exchange and, in particular, their existing trading orders.
In recent years, as investors have become more self-sufficient and comfortable with computers, online trading has gained a widespread acceptance for trading. For example, online trading systems have been created which facilitate the trading of financial instruments such as stocks, bonds, currency, futures, or other suitable financial instruments. Using such systems, investors may have direct access to their accounts information and may initiate transactions nearly instantaneously and, in some cases, 24 hours a day.